Caffeinated Buddha: Expound This.

Yesterday, before a long walk. I couldn’t find my headphones.
Damn.
No music? No audiobook? Just…walking?
Ugh.

I pound an espresso.

The last thing I read before leaving home is, “…insentient beings expounding the dharma”. One of those inscrutable lines, which, when pulled out of context, is made more inscrutable.

But it sticks.

First thing I notice - stay with me - is the air.
A slight breeze. Body moving through this invisible life-giving whatchamacallit.
Cool air that belies the forecast of stifling heat.

The walk itself isn’t a stand-alone.
But an extension of what came before.
Not coffee. Dress. Meditate. Write. Walk.
But coffeedressmeditatwritewalk.

Something else I noticed which began the day before.

At the gym.

I was standing on one foot, eyes closed, for 30 seconds.
“Maintain balance,” my mind advised.
Yet it became clear that the body didn’t need instructions.
All the little foot hydraulics were engaged in ‘balance’.
My mind only showed up when I started to actually fall.
During an ‘oh, shit’ moment.
Then, both feet hit the ground.
Damn.
I was still alive.

And on the walk, I noticed again I’m not doing anything.
I even tried to find some motivation, ambition, focus.
Nothing.
I wasn’t purposefully walking a straight line, or obeying pedestrian rules of the road, or attempting to stay upright.

It just was as it was.

For Caffeinated Buddha, this is pretty damn cool.

My feet are numb. Peripheral neuropathy.
It’s a horror show for a once-proud semi-action hero to admit.
I find myself dismayed by the lack of connection to the earth and its effect on the simple act of walking. I imagine it worsening. All sorts of things.

And I still catch myself trying to walk the way I remember walking.

However, on this day, after a home-brewed almond milk latte, no headphones, and those delicious few words on insentient beings expounding the dharma—there’s no issue.

The body does the body.
Pebbles, grass, cars, and stop signs sing their sermons.
Life is just this.